"I'm heading home," I told her. "Wondered if you wanted a ride."

Casey smiled, glanced at Alec, then back to me. College-age, Casey was Hawaiian and Filipino, with high cheekbones and sleek black hair. Very pretty. "Thanks, but I'm gonna stay here for a while."

Alec looked very pleased with himself. I turned back to her.

"Okay, but can I ask you something real quick, Case?" I smiled sweetly at Alec. "It'll just take a minute."

I steered her away, catching her as she stumbled. Closer inspection revealed she'd been indulging in more than just alcohol.

"Casey," I told her, once we were out of earshot, "I don't think you should be hanging around with him. "

"Why not? He's a nice guy."

"I don't know about that. He just used the same pick-up lines on me. I think he's trying to get laid."

"Every guy here is trying to get laid. I know the game."

"Yeah, but—"

"Look," she said, "I appreciate the big sister thing, but I'm not stupid. I can handle this." A mischievous look crossed her face. "Besides, I never would have thought you would be the one preaching sexual caution."

Like I didn't know what that was a reference to. Damn O'Neill's libido. I made a face and attempted a few more logical pleas. She rejected them all, indulgence soon giving way to annoyance. By then, Alec hadn't been able to control himself. He came back over and put a possessive arm around her. She looked up at him adoringly, and I knew a lost cause when I saw one.

Seth and I met up back at my place, and he listened with admirable patience while I vented about men preying on women.

"Isn't that what you do though?" We were sitting on my living-room floor, setting up a game of Scrabble.

"I…no. It's not the same at all."

"How so?"

He held my eyes for a moment, and I finally looked away. "It just isn't. Do you want to go first?"

He let the matter drop. Another nice thing about being with a non confrontational guy.

I quickly discovered playing Scrabble with Seth was like playing Monopoly with Jerome. A losing battle from the first turn. Admittedly, my knowledge of more than two dozen languages gave me a large vocabulary, but I didn't craft or manipulate words on a regular basis. Seth was a master. He could study the board, spend a minute calculating, and then play some word that was not only worth tons of points but interesting too. Maize. Hexagon. Tawdry. Bisque.

That last one was just cruel.

Meanwhile, I was spelling words like as, lit, ill, and tee. And almost never on high-point spaces.

"Wait," he said. "That's not a word."

I looked down to where, in a moment of desperation, I'd played zixic on a triple-word-score space.

"Uh, sure it is."

"What's it mean?"

"It's sort of like…quixotic, but with more…"

"Bullshit?"

I laughed out loud. I'd never heard him swear before.

"More zeal. Hence the z."

"Uh-huh. Use it in a sentence."

"Um…'You are a zixic writer.'"

"I don't believe this."

"That you're zixic?"

"That you're trying to cheat at Scrabble." He leaned back against my couch, shaking his head. "I mean, I was ready to accept the whole evil thing, but this is kind of extreme. "

"Hey, it's not cheating. Just because your limited vocabulary doesn't include this word doesn't mean there's anything sinister going on."

"Care to back that up with a dictionary?"

"Hey," I said haughtily, "I don't appreciate your zixistic tone."

"If you weren't such a zixy woman, I'd be angry."

"Your zixicism is infuriating."

The game forgotten, we spent the next twenty minutes coming up with as many zix variations as we could. Interestingly, it seemed to function just as well as a suffix as a prefix. I suspected that if Bastien had heard this conversation, I'd be accused of more boring geekiness.

Seth and I finally went to bed on the verge of hysterics, both of us still giggling once we were wrapped up in my covers.

"You smell good," I told him, my face close to his neck. "What cologne is that?"

He stifled a yawn. "I don't wear cologne. Too strong."

"You must." I pressed my face closer.

"Hey, be careful. You're giving me funny ideas."

He had skin and sweat smells unique to him and him alone, deliriously delicious. With that, however, was a faint scent of something else. Almost like apples, but not in a girly, boutique sort of way. It was fleeting and lovely, mingled with musk and soft leather.

"No, it's something. You must. Is it your deodorant?"

"Oh," he mumbled, yawning again. "I bet it's this soap Andrea and Terry got me. Came as part of some set."

"Mmm. It's perfect." It made me want to eat his neck— among other things. "You know, you still owe me pancakes. I think I could go for…apple cinnamon ones now. "

"Apple cinnamon? You sure are demanding."

"It's all right. I think you're man enough for it."

"Thetis, if I actually believed you had either apples or cinnamon in your kitchen, I'd make them for you right now."

I didn't answer. I was pretty sure I had some year-old Apple Jacks, but that was about it.

Seth gave a low laugh at my silence and then kissed my temple. "I don't know how anyone could think you were Genevieve. I couldn't make up someone like you in a thousand years."

I considered that, not entirely sure if it was a compliment or not. "How do you come up with your characters then?"

He laughed again. "If I didn't know any better—and I'm sure I do—I'd say that sounds suspiciously like 'Where do you get your ideas from?'"

I blushed in the darkness. When he and I had first met, I'd taken a haughty high ground over that question, making fun of the fans that so often asked him that.

"Hey, it's a totally different question."

I could sense his amusement as he contemplated an answer. Part of the reason he stumbled in conversation sometimes was because he didn't like to blurt things out. He chose his words carefully.

"They come from my head, I guess. The stories too. They live there, screaming to get out. If I didn't write them down, they'd eat me up. Give me less of a grip on the real world than I already have."

"Not that I'm complaining…but, if there's so much inside, do you even need to care about the real world?"

"Well, that's the paradox. The stories are born in my head, but my inner self is fueled by my outer self. Symbiotic relationship of sorts. The stories' ideas wouldn't come if I didn't have experiences to draw on. Jealousy. Love. Lust. Anger. Heartache. All that stuff."

Something pulled inside of me. "You had your heart broken much?"

He paused. "Of course. Everyone does. Part of life."

"Tell me her name. I'll kick her ass. I don't want anyone hurting you."

He rested his face against my hair, his tone even and gentle when he spoke. "You're wondrous and powerful and gifted, but even you can't save me from hurting. No one can do that for anyone. I can make things perfect in the fictions I create, but the real world isn't so kind. That's just how it is. And anyway, for every bad thing in life, there are more good things to tip the balance."

"Like what?"

"Like little blonde nieces. And royalty checks. And you."

I sighed and relaxed into him. His grip on me shifted into something more comfortable, and in a few minutes he was asleep. Amazing.

I lay snuggled with him for a while, but sleep proved more elusive for me this time, as I turned over his words. I thought about someone breaking his heart and wondered if I'd be the next culprit, intentionally or otherwise.

When sleep came, I immediately dropped into a steamy dream in which Seth and I were having mad, passionate sex. He'd tied my hands to my bedposts, and naturally, he was huge. Each thrust made my headboard bang against the wall, so much so that my neighbors complained.